


To do without

by AliceTheBrave



Series: Fighting, Flying, and Falling 101: A Mandalorian Romance [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Rivals, Gen, Kid Fic, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29371467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceTheBrave/pseuds/AliceTheBrave
Summary: Din makes assumptions about Paz. How could he not? But when they are forced to spend so much time together things start to change.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Paz Vizsla
Series: Fighting, Flying, and Falling 101: A Mandalorian Romance [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137011
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	To do without

The barracks were cold.

Din was used to it, living on the Razor Crest for as long as he had.

Space was cold and no matter how much energy one spent on maintaining a livable ambient temperature it was always a losing battle. One little ship could not warm the entire galaxy, though its warmth would leak out to try anyway. Thermodynamics were much like compassion in that way. _Buir **[i]**_ had taught him to ration both, to save it for when it was necessary and not spend it too freely, else he’d have none for when he needed it most.

So yes, the barracks were cold, but Din did not mind. He burrowed into his standard issue therma-ply blanket and thought of warm things instead. He slept with his socks on, his spare _kute_ that he had not yet soiled in training a layer that kept him warm enough to sleep.

Many Trainees complained bitterly for it, their Clan’s homes much more comfortable than this, their _buire **[ii]**_ providing anything that might bring them sweeter dreams. Din’s _buir_ had bought him blankets and furs and sewn thick linings into his _kute **[iii]**_ but she had never done it except for when it was needed. Din had walked ice-worlds by her side that would have made his peers weep icy tears.

Still, most had been sent comforts by their Clan within their first week – Riktan Filan had a box of air activated warming packs that they stuffed into their sleeping bag every night, carefully placing each with the precision of mines. Chu-ny Sheer had been gifted nano-warmer lined night clothes, the very fibers shimmering as she shuffled to her rack every night. Most of the Trainees had such little gifts, reminders of home and the comfort that waited for them once training was over. Most were permitted, some were not but kept cleverly hidden anyway.

The only one that had not seemed to receive such small bits of encouragement was Din.

And, oddly enough, Paz Viszla.

Din knew why he hadn’t received such things – he had not asked for them. He had actively asked _buir_ not to send him them when last she had called. If he could not survive the Fighting Corps, where his basic needs were provided for, where he was looked after carefully, how was he to survive in the vast and brutal galaxy? How would he survive by her side as a _beroya_?

It was cold but it was not cold enough to warrant excess.

Din did not know why Paz Vizsla had not received any such comforts.

Paz had a large and enduring Clan. Perhaps not as large as it once had been, perhaps not as proud, but enduring none the less. There were Viszlas abound, though most were off fighting more often than not.

Paz spent every free moment with his family, trailing back to the barracks cheerful and renewed just before curfew.

It did not seem to Din that his Clan would deny him any request, let alone something as simple as a sleeping bag or a fur lined blanket. But Paz Viszla slept in the rack below, curled tightly in his standard issue therma-ply blanket and Din did not know why.

Din did not mind the cold. In his life before, his home world had gone through its seasons, three of which were bitterly cold as far as he could remember.

Paz had been born in the capitol of Concordia[iv], orbiting _manda’yaim **[v]**_ , and had only ever known its mild to slightly humid climate. Din could hear his teeth chattering from here. Somehow Din had assumed that the other’s larger body would better regulate his temperature. But he supposed, there was so much more of Paz to heat, much more of him to bleed to the room at large, to seep into the air and the other Trainees where they breathed into their warm furs and bedrolls.

Din found the thought ridiculous. Why should Paz offer them such things and yet deny himself a restful night? As it was his chattering was denying Din his own sleep.

Sighing, he rolled and shoved his face into the ineffectual stuffing of his standard issue pillow, the immediate flatness and strain in his neck doing nothing to ease his frustration. The instructors had watched their match together in their Final Trial. They had seen the glares the two of them traded, the arrogant tilt of Paz’s helm and the dismissive glint of Din’s visor and they had decided to make them rack mates. The racks were durable, steel things, two cots high, with compartments in the base of each and two footlockers at the end. They left little room for privacy and even less if you shared space with an entitled Vizsla scion. The rack began to shake slightly beneath Din as Paz rolled restlessly in his sleep and Din stared into the pitch dark as he counted the number of squeaks it made.

Ten and he was done.

He got to seven and then he heard the unmistakable sound of distress, a whimper in the cold quiet. He would not have heard it if he had not been listening so intently to his rack mate.

Without a thought he slipped down off his rack, socked feet landing quietly on the ground, the rustle of his blanket following the only sound he made. He turned to face Paz where he lay in his rack, curled tightly into a ball beneath his own blanket. Din could barely see his face from where it was tucked into his arms, but he saw enough of it to recognize fear.

Din had not thought that Paz Vizsla would have nightmares.

Din had been wrong about Paz on several counts it seemed, and he felt foolish as he thought it through.

Paz Vizsla had been born to Clan Vizsla of Concordia. Paz had seen Mandalore, been there, walked those sacred halls. Paz had been taken from that place just as Din had been take from his.

But where Din had a second birth in his acceptance of the Way, Paz had carried their tradition and its ghosts.

Paz may have had his Clan and his honor, but he still dreamt of fire and blood. Din thought then that he too might have asked his _aliit **[vi]**_ to respect his wishes and not send him anything frivolous.

Paz made another sound of fear and before he could stop himself Din was moving forward and laying his hand on his head.

It was a bold thing to do.

By rights Paz should have woken and broke his arm for it. Touching someone in their sleep, without permission, on the head where only family and lovers were allowed to linger. But Paz did not wake.

He quieted, turning into the warmth of Din’s palm and Din wondered if this was how he looked, all those nights when _buir_ had to hush him through red dreams. He tried to remember then what she would do to calm him, to lull him back to sleep along with the hum of the Razor Crest’s engines.

_“Ba'jur bal beskar'gam,”_

He began to sing, unsure and awkward but clinging to that memory of those early days, when _buir_ would sing him the _Resol’nare **[vii]**_ rhyme until he fell asleep. He knew now that it was a promise and a lesson as much as a lullaby, but then it had simply been a comfort to a scared child in the dark.

_“Ara'nov, aliit,_

_Mando'a bal Mand'alor—_

_An vencuyan mhi. **[viii]**”_

Paz uncurled slightly from his ball, and Din continued to sing, running through all the histories they had been taught and some he had learned for himself. He ran out of those and began to sing haltingly in his mother tongue, what fragments of cradle songs his birth parents had sung him and some he had picked up from planets he had visited.

He sang into the night and carded his fingers through Paz’s hair as he bled his warmth into the duracrete floor beneath him. Shivering, he wrapped his blanket tighter around him as he sang.

Thermodynamics much like compassion was simply a force of nature.

* * *

[i] Buir: parent

[ii] Buire: parents

[iii] Kute: underwear; bodysuit worn under armor; flight suit

[iv] Concordia: After the Mandalorian Civil War the traditionalist faction, as the defeated party, were exiled to Mandalore’s moon Concordia. It was a self-governed province headed by Pre Vizsla who later created the Death Watch and overthrew Satine Kryze, duchess of Mandalore.

[v] Manda’yaim: The planet Mandalore.

[vi] Aliit: Clan; family

[vii] Resol’nare: The six tenants of Mandalorian culture; the core of their beliefs; the code which all Mandalorians adhere to regardless of faction/denomination.

[viii] The Resol’nare Rhyme: Literally, ‘Education and armor,/Self-defense, our tribe,/Our language and our leader—/All help us survive.’ ; a rhyme Mandalorian’s sing to their children in order to teach them the Resol’nare.

**Author's Note:**

> Mandalorian's teach their history orally, all of their histories are songs. I just think that's neat. 
> 
> Also their families and trainers would definitely give them another blanket but these two are ridiculous and will not Show Weakness, especially in front of each other.
> 
> Tumblr: AliceTheBrave  
> Twitter: @ally_alice_als


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